Wondering if someone like Cuban had bought the Pirates, if they could've done for us what they did turning things around in Houston?

Unlike Nutting et al, the Astros were committed to go all the way --- up to and including bringing Verlander in at the 11th hour --- as the final piece of the puzzle, on top of all the young studs like Springer and Altuve.

Drafting and developing more than...0 MLB superstars in 10 years would certainly help winning.

I partly agree. Talent wins, not money. And quality talent can still be very cheap if you develop it from within. But at some point you need to spend to sustain. And that is where the frustrations come. The pirates refused to spend enough to sustain their success. They’ would add money in the short term but never commit to any term. The Astros by comparison took on some expensive future seasons of Verlander’s contract. And you are damn right I would have a melt down if the Bucs spent as little as the Astros had the last 5 years. That is because I already endured years and years of ultra low payrolls. The Pirates never spent like they alluded they would when their time finally came. Yes, they did spend more on payroll. But so did the rest of the league. It was small incremental spending done in a way that they could pull back from it easily. The Pirates always talk about how they are committed to winning and that they will spend when it makes sense to spend but their actions are always noncommittal.

I just don't think the Pirates ever had that core of players that the Astros have assembled the past few years, which then justified their splurge on Verlander and a few other FAs to help them over the hump.

They have springer, altuve, correa -- the list is long.

We had..... Mccutcheon --

Astros built something special with incredible drafting -- our best team a couple years ago really wasn't close -- we were good, but not Astros good

So our GM has been on the job over 10 years and he has yet to acquire a player good enough to build towards the future with? McCutchen was inherited. Yet you consider him a great GM, do you not?

I think our GM is excellent on acquiring valuable players that others have discarded or undervalued. For example, many here scoffed at the Happ trade, as well as many others.

Drafting? The results have not been as good -- at least, not in the stratosphere of the Astros GM, if that's the measuring stick you want to use.

But then again, not many GMs are that successful with drafts. What the GM in Houston did with that team over a 5 year period is almost unprecedented. It is hard to judge ANY GM against that performance - it's almost unfair.

I wish our drafts had yielded better results, but I think the team has always attempted to draft top talent who they believed could succeed as major league players. We chose Cole and Taillon - how can you argue with those picks AT THE TIME they were drafted?

During Huntington's time, i never got the feeling that he was "avoiding" big-name guys just because they couldn't be signed, as the GM did under the last regime. Unfortunately, our guys just haven't turned out as great as the Astros guys.

No one knows how these HS and college players will turn out as pros, but it seems like the Houston GM pulled pocket aces on 5 hands in a row. His drafts seem to have been incredibly lucky.

Either that, or he knows something about talent evaluation that no one else knows.

Wondering if someone like Cuban had bought the Pirates, if they could've done for us what they did turning things around in Houston?

Unlike Nutting et al, the Astros were committed to go all the way --- up to and including bringing Verlander in at the 11th hour --- as the final piece of the puzzle, on top of all the young studs like Springer and Altuve.

Did they acquire Altuve and Springer as free agents? Did they spend tens of millions of dollars on acquiring them?

Do you really think you can BUY a world series?

If you could, then LA and NY would win every single year.

The Astros drafted Springer out of UCONN in 2011 -

Would you have selected Springer over Cole if you were the Pirates?

Altuve was an even more random story - NO ONE thought he could play in the MLB -

The Astros have been incredibly lucky (fortunate) in acquiring a core group of young players for almost no $$$.

Wondering if someone like Cuban had bought the Pirates, if they could've done for us what they did turning things around in Houston?

Unlike Nutting et al, the Astros were committed to go all the way --- up to and including bringing Verlander in at the 11th hour --- as the final piece of the puzzle, on top of all the young studs like Springer and Altuve.

Did they acquire Altuve and Springer as free agents? Did they spend tens of millions of dollars on acquiring them?

Do you really think you can BUY a world series?

If you could, then LA and NY would win every single year.

The Astros drafted Springer out of UCONN in 2011 -

Would you have selected Springer over Cole if you were the Pirates?

Altuve was an even more random story - NO ONE thought he could play in the MLB -

The Astros have been incredibly lucky (fortunate) in acquiring a core group of young players for almost no $$$.

There were a lot of people at the time that didn’t think the Pirates should select Cole. A lot of people thought the Bucs should take a poisition player (Rendon was the top guy being touted) and even amongst pitchers Cole was not a slam dunk top choice. I said at the time I preferred Trevor Bauer over Cole. The fact is there was a ton of talent in that draft. Rendon, Lindor, and Springer all were highly touted position players. The Bucs missed out on them. And there were many Draft guys that had the Bucs pegged to take Manny Machado instead of Taillon. I won’t hammer the Pirates for all these selections. But when you have a top 5 pick in four straight seasons you should land at least one legitimate star from those picks. It doesn’t take incredible luck to bag one stud player out of that many high picks.

_________________Neal Huntington on what he's been told by his bosses about $$$: "We've got assurances we're going to be able to continue to do what we've done."